Friday, September 16, 2016

Moscow, September 16 (Interfax) - The head of the Roman Catholic Church received a gift from Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia - a part of the relics of St. Seraphim of Sarov in a shrine made in the form of an easter egg.

Head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk conveyed the gift on Thursday at the Apostolic Palace, in the Vatican, the DECR communication service reports.

Among the focuses of the talk was the tragic situation of the Christian population of the Middle East. Pope Francis and Metropolitan Hilarion pointed to the positive experience of cooperation in giving aid to Christians in the Middle East in pursuance of the decision made at the meeting in Cuba.

"The both sides stressed the need for further consolidated actions in the Middle East. The DECR chairman introduced the Pope to the Russian Church’s initiatives for bringing humanitarian aid to suffering people in Syria and thanked the Pontiff for his peacemaking efforts," the message reads.

The sides noted the fruitful cooperation between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church in the field of culture. Thus, in the last year a project for exchanging academic trips by priests and theological students from the Roman Catholic Church and the Moscow Patriarchate to Moscow and Rome respectively has proved to hold much promise as an opportunity for a deeper introduction to the traditions and today’s life of the two Churches.

Metropolitan Hilarion also met with the Vatican State Secretary Pietro Cardinal Parolin. They agreed that it was necessary to continue the peacemaking efforts aimed at overcoming the conflict, in compliance with the Joint Declaration signed in Havana inviting “Churches in Ukraine to work towards social harmony”.

Metropolitan Hilarion has arrived in Italy to the 14th plenary session of the Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. The session will be held from September 15 to 22 in Chieti.

Since the Saints belong to the Lord...wouldn't it make sense that such relics can be properly honored & venerated by both Orthodox & Catholics, each of whom recognize relics as inspiring & powerful treasures of faith?

If our ecclesiology allowed for the Catholic sister church idea: yes. As it is (and was highlighted in the recent Crete event) the Church properly doesn't call any body outside a "Church" and they decided to just stick with the term because it would be too cumbersome to make up some new term. Then again, the very group (the Russian Church) who would have most ardently pushed for that understanding is the one that gave the Pope of Rome relics of a post-schism saint.

As a rule or principle of ecclesiology, theology, spirituality, etc. the answer to the question "Should we be giving Catholics our relics?" has to be no. In fact, the answer is pretty obvious - not giving "pearls to swine" and all that - though this is the modern era and no doubt someone here will post some tortured reasoning based on the strange observation that if you don't give pearls to the swine you are being "unloving".

Yet, as in all things "ecumenical" there is always compromise, ambiguity, and finally a little wallowing in the mud with the swine "for the greater glory of God" and such. I actually don't have a problem with this *in principle* if such things actually accomplished the fruit for which we are told we are doing such things for (i.e. "reconciliation with our RC brothers and sisters!"). Alas, the reality is that this fruit never actually is born, and after 100 years of these sorts of compromising actions we are farther apart than ever....

As a rule or principle of ecclesiology, theology, spirituality, etc. the answer to the question "Should we be giving Catholics our relics?" has to be no. In fact, the answer is pretty obvious - not giving "pearls to swine" and all that - though this is the modern era and no doubt someone here will post some tortured reasoning based on the strange observation that if you don't give pearls to the swine you are being "unloving".

Yet, as in all things "ecumenical" there is always compromise, ambiguity, and finally a little wallowing in the mud with the swine "for the greater glory of God" and such. I actually don't have a problem with this *in principle* if such things actually accomplished the fruit for which we are told we are doing such things for (i.e. "reconciliation with our RC brothers and sisters!"). Alas, the reality is that this fruit never actually is born, and after 100 years of these sorts of compromising actions we are farther apart than ever....

I didn't have an immediate visceral reaction to this as many people did, after all, I've given icons to non-Orthodox family members (who I knew would treat them with respect) in the hope that seeing them, they'd feel a pull towards Orthodoxy (and this has largely been the case. Having an icon in the house makes Orthodoxy present in a way most people in the West never experience).

My question is not only why would WE do this, but why would the Catholics want a relic of a strictly Orthodox saint like Seraphim of Sarov? They have their own procedures for canonization, as we've heard about with Mother Theresa recently.

Conversely, what would Patriarch Kirill do if someone gave him a relic of Mother Theresa? He can't venerate it after all, she's not a saint to us.

In the end, I imagine this event is more political than ecclesiastical. Patriarch Kirill's meetings (directly or indirectly) are something, I believe, done to aid Russia, to emphasize that we here are not isolated from the world community. Within Russia, Patriarch Kirill is very different. I think this is just a show.

I don't think this is expressly linked to the "sister church" idea, because that's a specific terminology under a larger ecclesiological umbrella of acknowledging grace in the sacraments of other particular churches. That ecclesiology is certainly acceptable within Orthodoxy, and in fact I'd say it's the majority view among our hierarchs and theologians.

As for Kirill venerating an icon of Mother Theresa, I will only point out that every saint's relics are venerated before that saint is officially "canonized" or "glorified." It will not surprise me, for example, if after their imminent rapprochement the Orthodox and Copts venerate each other's saints, nor would it surprise me if there is veneration which occurs before this rapprochement and indeed leads to the rapprochement. (There are already Orthodox in certain parts of the world who venerate Samuel the Confessor, for example...even though his torture was a result of his Monophysite beliefs.)

This agreement takes advantage of those naive Orthodox who have been insisting that they are a “sister” Church of a Vatican “sister” Church, as though glorification (theosis) can have a sister otherwise than Herself.

Eastern Rite Catholics venerate Seraphim of Sarov. I have seen an icon of Seraphim at a Latin Rite church. St Sergius of Radonezh is in the Martyrologium Romanus. The Latins are more open to EO saints than the other way round. I don't think giving the Pope a relic of Seraphim is a bad thing. Relics contain grace, why not share it?

It seems to me that relics fall into kind of a grey area between the Eucharist and the Gospel. Orthodox and Catholics don't share intercommunion, but they certainly have the same gospel. Maybe relics are kind of like holy water? If I give a Catholic some Orthodox holy water is that ok?

Also, historically there's been a longstanding tradition of sharing relics between particular Orthodox churches...even though these particular Orthodox churches do not share a unity of belief in all things. Similarly, Catholics and Orthodox don't share all their beliefs, even to the extent that there is schism between them. However, they do share a belief in the power of God through relics. Perhaps that should be the standard? So, no relic-sharing with Protestants but it's ok with Copts and Catholics?

And about that umbrella, Peregrinus, they totally use them in the Ethiopian church so if you want one you'll have to talk to the priest from "The Exorcist 2": http://pimphop.com/wp-content/uploads/Exorcist-2-The-Heretic-Older-Kokumo-2-e1332007686540.jpg

"Orthodox and Catholics don't share intercommunion, but they certainly have the same gospel"

Where is the big red buzzer when you need one? Such a sentence only makes sense in the worst corners of "ecumenism" - it assumes the worst of nominalistic pseudo protestant "theology".

No, there are REAL and non-trivial differences between the Gospel as preached and lived in Orthodoxy and the other "churches" and confessions. No, the division between he churches are not nominal - the unfortunate result of historical circumstances and everyday sin but with the important core of "the Gospel" still intact.

If it were as Evangelical Orthodoxy says, then truly the Spirit of Truth is not with us and we are lost. It is not so however, and the fact that the current way of "doing" ecumenism leads to such non-sense (and here Evangelical Orthodoxy is just repeating an all to common belief) reveals its bankruptcy...

Everybody made good points in this comments section. I'd add that the idea that one is or is not part of the Church is not really as obviously Orthodox as some make it out to be. There did seem to be such a concept as 'partial communion' according to which a church, though severed from intercommunion, made itself potentially a member of the church by retaining the structure of the church (sort of like a foot that is still part of the body even though it has lost blood circulation). I'll just quote Fr. Christiaan Kappes:

"At first glance, the phrase 'full/partial communion' is not an easy one to understand. Nonetheless, it is quite traditional (ad mentem patrum or kata to paterikon phronema)." He continues to explain this in a footnote: "Mark (aka the Ephesine), in his opening conciliar speech, asserted to Pope Eugene IV: 'Today, the [Byzantine and Latin] members of the Lord's Body, formerly broken apart and forcibly divided for quite a time, make eager haste toward union with one another.' See Mark Eugenicus, Oration to Eugenius IV, in Marci Eugenici Metropolitae Ephesi opera anti-unionistica, Concilium Florentium Documenta et Scriptores Series A, ed. L. Petit (Rome: Pontificial Institute of Oriental Studies, 1977), 10.1: 28. Hence the Ephesine saw the Latins in partial communion with the Greeks (at the time). For Mark, only after several demonstrations of bad faith, did he definitively separate communion and denominate Latins 'heretics.'"

We should also add that the "glorious Patriarch" Gennadios II Scholarios (St. Velimirović's words, not mine), whose Orthodoxy St. Mark of Ephesus believed in so firmly as to entrust to him the anti-union effort, decreed that Latin and Armenian pilgrims to the Holy Land should be treated as schismatics, not heretics (in his letter to Maximos Sophianos). In the same letter he says that although Latins must be refused communion, they can still receive antidoron and blessings from Orthodox priests.

"I'd add that the idea that one is or is not part of the Church is not really as obviously Orthodox as some make it out to be..."

You could throw in St. Basil the Great, who had a lifelong habit (both pragmatic and "theologically") of bending over backwards (and remaining in communion with) not only schismatics, but what subsequently the Church defined as "heretics" in that oh so "dogmatic" way.

What is novel is not this approach, but the "ecumenism" of the last 100 years or so which has tried to define and indeed institutionalize this sort of "economia" in a way that has led to real harm and little good. It's all so much bumbling around in the dark (i.e. the dark of nominalistic accounts of language and man, ecclesiology that is sort of made up as the "dialogue" goes along, intentional vague assertions such as "sister churches" in the hope that a kind of magic raproachment will be born out of what is little more than a sentimental olive branch, etc. etc. etc.)

Not that it matters much - all these efforts reveal the real "spirit" in them by their fruits (e.g. desperate attempts to prop up the status quo in Crete, etc.)

"The World is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and save the World from suicide."